Strategies and lessons learnt from user involvement in researching quality and safety in nursing homes and homecare

Purpose

The purpose is to share strategies, rationales and lessons learnt from user involvement in a quality and safety improvement research project from the practice field in nursing homes and homecare services.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a viewpoint paper summarizing how researchers and co-researchers from the practice field of nursing homes and homecare services (nurse counsellors from different municipalities, patient ombudsman and next-of-kin representatives/and elderly care organization representant) experienced user involvement through all phases of the research project. The project included implementation of a leadership intervention.

Findings

Multiple strategies of user involvement were applied during the project including partnership in the consortium, employment of user representatives (co-researchers) and user-led research activities. The rationale was to ensure sound context adaptation of the intervention and development of tailor-made activities and tools based on equality and mutual trust in the collaboration. Both university-based researchers and Co-researchers experienced it as useful and necessary to involve or being involved in all phases of the research project, including the designing, planning, intervention implementation, evaluation and dissemination of results.

Originality/value

User involvement in research is a growing field. There is limited focus on this aspect in quality and safety interventions in nursing homes and homecare settings and in projects focussing on the leadership' role in improving quality and safety.